Happy Secretary's Day!

Yes, yes, I know many people are calling this Administrative Assistant's Day.  But see, I got admonished once for that, by a secretary at a prior firm.  Her take on it was that "legal secretary" is a perfectly good and respectable title, and she'd earned it.  I tend to agree, and don't particularly see the title "secretary" as anything negative.  As a lawyer, I know I could never practice nearly as well, efficiently, or effectively without a good secretary.

My firm doesn't have good secretaries, though.  It's got awesome secretaries.

So since this is my first Secretary's Day with this firm, I decided to go personal and general at the same time.  I'm giving each staff member a different floral card I myself made from photographs I took.  The tough thing about them is that they're blank inside, and I'm not so great at writing out cards like that.  Shocking, considering how verbose I am, huh?

For the gift?  I baked a cake!  Chocolate fudge cake with homemade vanilla buttercream.

I had to ice the cake and then fridge it so I could smooth it down before using... betcha guessed it... fondant!  My very first real fondant cake!

To decorate it, I made tiny flowers and leaves.  Each flower has a center of a single sugar pearl, and the large ones I brushed with silver pearl dust.  Each one is a little different, as they're hand curled, both flowers and leaves.  And I used color powders to tint the white vanilla fondant into pink, purple, and yellow flowers, and green leaves.

Since I did a square cake and really liked the idea of a gift box, I also made a yellow and green marbled bow.

Then it was time to smooth the buttercream and cover the cake.  I decided to leave the base fondant white.

Once it was covered in fondant, I added green pearl dust swirls and a green and yellow marbled (and textured) ribbon.

Then the bow, which looked pretty nifty once on the cake, if I do say so myself.

And then all those flowers and leaves I made?  The majority of them ended up on the cake.  I might've missed the mark with regard to the "less is more" school of thought, but considering the fact that this is my very first real fondant cake, I think I did a pretty good job.

Can't wait to bring it in tomorrow!

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